Money in Politics

Money can have a negative influence on politics and present a challenge to foreign aid. Find out how to reduce political funding’s adverse impact on developing countries.

Money is vital for modern democracies. Without it, citizens would not have the means to convey ideas nor compete for political power through electoral processes. However, money can distort the democratic ideals of fair competition through unbalanced access to resources to some individuals or political groups, upsetting one of the cornerstones of democracy – the concept of ‘one person one vote’.

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Monitoring money in politics

U4 recently attended a UNDP event that brought together Supreme Audit Institutions from different countries in the Balkans to discuss their role in monitoring money financing political parties and electoral campaigns. The negative influence of money in these processes, compounded with a necessity for resources to allow information to reach out to voters, is a problem to be addressed. To learn more about different actors and their roles in monitoring how money influences political processes, take a look at this U4 brief: Political finance: State control and civil society monitoring.

Videos

Financiamiento Politico y Corrupcion

This animation, produced by Transparency International in 2010 in Spanish, presents a summary of the main risks associated with the financing of political parties and political campaigns, besides making four recommendations on how citizens can contribute to reduce the negative influence money may have in such political processes.

Recommended Reading

Grand corruption, involving senior government officials (politically exposed persons), hardly take place without financial intermediaries in rich countries. Tackling this requires efforts at both ends, where the money comes from and where it gets stashed away. Global Witness investigated four cases from the latter perspective -- where illicit financial flows end up. GW has assessed the gaps the Financial Action Task Force, an inter governmental initiative to combat money laundering, needs to cover if the international financial system is genuinely committed to making the life of crooks around the world more difficult.

Does the incentive for re-election induce mayors to behave less corruptly? It looks like electoral rules that enhance political accountability play a crucial role in constraining politician's corrupt behavior. This article’s findings suggest so by analyzing the case of Brazilian municipalities, where data showed that mayors in their first term misappropriated, on average, 27 percent fewer resources than mayors in their second-term. This difference was more pronounced among municipalities with less access to information and where the likelihood of judicial punishment was lower (Payment requested for access to article).